SETTLEMENT CLEARS WAY FOR ARTS PAGEANT

A financial dispute between the Alpine School District and the Utah Pageant of the Arts has been settled, clearing the way for the annual show to be presented at American Fork High School.

Alpine Superintendent Steven Baugh said the pageant will pay $12,000, for past-due rent and to pay 1989 charges in advance."There are good feelings between us, and they're cooperating," Baugh said. "I feel confident that the money will be forthcoming."

The show traditionally has been presented at American Fork High School, but Alpine administrators said in December that they would not permit the pageant to use the school this year because financial agreements had been breached.

Don Hampton, a member of the pageant's board of directors, met with Alpine officials early this month and struck the new agreement, which calls for the pageant to make a $2,000 payment on March 21 and make weekly installments of the same amount until the rent for 1988 and 1989 is paid.

Baugh said he is unsure how the district will react if this payment arrangement is broken.

"We would have to address that if it occurred. It would be impossible for me to address that at this time," he said.

Last year pageant representatives agreed they would pay the district rent as soon as they received ticket proceeds from the summer show, but by December no rent had been paid and Alpine had not heard from the pageant since the end of the 1988 show.

Hampton said at that time that his organization was not aware Alpine had a problem with the financial arrangement.

The school board voted in May 1988 to not allow the pageant to use the high school for its 1988 program, because it had not, at that time, paid its 1987 bill. But the pageant director at the time, David Brockbank, persauded the school board to allow the group to use the building providing the pageant paid what it owed for 1987 and 1988.

Alpine officials say they want to support the important community effort but they cannot justify using public school funds to subsidize a private program.